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With Sachin Tendulkar having turned 40 (the big 4 O) a few days ago and, numerous articles have been written about his remarkable career. I am a fan of this great cricketer but perhaps not a super-fan like many others who know every statistic and nitty gritty detail. Having lived in Bombay, I was able follow his career from early on due his records set in the Harris Sheild and Giles Shield tournaments. He made his debut back in 1989 at the young age of 16 years and 205 days against India's arch-rival Pakistan in Karachi and announced his retirement from ODI at the end of 2012.

As I was reminiscing about his career, I felt the desire to write something but any article on his stats, career, style and achievements had already been written. Perhaps it in the geek in me that felt I should write an article about how technological advancements in the 24 years since his international debut back, helped me follow his career. So here is my geeky look back at technology and the Tendulkar era.

Good Ol' SW Radio : It must have been a rainy monsoon night when I was lying in bed hoping that this scrawny 17-year old would get his first century of his career. Back in 1990, the cable TV revolution had yet to begin in India and we only had Doordarshan. The one way to catch up on scores was to wait for the newspaper in the morning or try and catch the BBC commentary on Short Wave radio. I had all kinds of wires hooked to my window grill to get the best signal. Tendulkar was on his first tour of England and India were in trouble having lost some early wickets in the final innings of the 2nd Test. Tendulkar had put up a brave fight and was inching towards his first hundred. As he got into the 80s and 90s, it was nerve wracking just listening to the commentary and I was hoping and praying that he would get his hundred. The moment finally arrived and this young lad got his first hundred (I get goose pimples thinking about it) and saved India from a defeat. It was probably a scratchy signal but it allowed me to experience his first 100. Who knew he had 99 more centuries ahead of him.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) : For the next 3-4 years, I was able to follow his career on TV and Radio and he had blossomed into a confident batsman and was an established member of the Indian cricket team. In 1993, I left the country and with that it became harder for me to follow him. At that time, I was introduced to the Internet, which was largely used in academic circles. On our Unix workstations, there used to be an application called the Internet Relay Chat (IRC). IRC had thousands of chat rooms where you could login and chat on topics related to that channel. One of the popular rooms was #cricket where folks discussed cricket. When there was a live game, volunteers would provide live commentary of the game or regular score updates. For the next couple of years, I followed Sachin's career watching text messages as I worked on my assignment. It still remained exciting just sitting there watching text scroll by with little to no visual description of the shot but still as exciting.

World Wide Web : Towards the end of my studies, the world wide web had started to get popular because of the graphical browser Mosaic (then went on to become Netscape). With the rapid growth of the web, scores and other details started to move to the Web and somewhere in 90s, cricinfo.com was born. Cricinfo has its roots in the #cricket IRC channel and it became the most popular cricket website. With all the browser innovation, watching cricket on the web became more engaging as one could see graphics, stats and other information. For most of the 90s and into the 2000s, I followed his career on the web. During that period, Sachin had become the World's leading batsmen and it was a pleasure following him, even though it was reading an auto-refreshing web page. (For a while, cricinfo also offered live audio commentary for a fee but it did not really take off)

Willow TV and YouTube : In the decade since I left my grad school, the world wide web had grown beyond anything I would have imagined. The web was now available to people in their homes, most had dial-up services but broadband was catching on in the US. In the era of broadband communications, was born Willow TV. Willow TV allowed users to watch live video on computers via the Internet. I could now watch Tendulkar play thousands of miles away and not have to leave anything to my imagination. In 15 years, I had gone from listening to a scratchy SW radio commentary to watching him live on streaming video. By 2010/2011, YouTube was a sensation and was now Willow TV and YouTube were streaming cricket in High Definition.

Smartphone : With the launch of the iPhone, smartphone innovation took off in 2007/2008. Smartphones became more than phones and became multi-function devices where you could even watch TV. Willow TV started offering a mobile app allowing me to watch my cricket games anywhere I was. Almost 25 years later, I find myself in bed again but I am watching a crystal clear HD picture of the Little Master play. Times have changed, technology has changed but I get the same chill every time he plays and gets close to a 100. Agonizing as it was, he finally got his 100th 100.

Sachin Tendulkar is a rare sportsman who is not only amazingly gifted and talented, but very humble. In almost 25 years, this man has achieved every possible feat in the sport while technology has allowed me to follow this great sportsman from a scratchy audio signal on a radio to a crystal clear High Definition picture. Which achievement is bigger, Tendulkar's or the progress of technology? I leave it to you to decide.

We were not done with our New Year's wishes, when we were confronted with the news that my 14 year old cousin had died from head injuries resulting from a bike accident in India. 14 years old, alive and bubbly one day and gone the next. Could a helmet have saved his life? Probably yes. One of my pet peeves is around the use of seat belts and helmets. There are so many people I come across every day who are so callous about their use (or non-use) of seat belts and helmets, its quite shameful. One of my earliest memories was the death of a friend, who died from head injuries at 18. The image of a dead body covered in a white cloth with blood stains on the head is an image that still gives me the goodbumps.

The bottom line is that seat belts and helmets save lives and I was fortunate enough to have first-hand experience where a seat belt saved my father's life. In 1990, there was a plane crash of an Airbus A320 in Bangalore, when an Indian Airlines flight crashed into a swamp just as it approached the runway. The plane caught fire and roughly 100 of the 130 people on board died. My father was on that flight and survived that crash. Yes, he was able to live only because of this little thing called the Seat Belt. The seat belt saved his life and he only got bruised because he hit hit face and legs with the seat in-front. He went on to live a normal life for another 8 years before he passed away. 8 years that made a huge difference to our family and 8 years that I am very thankful for.

I really find it strange when people refuse to wear seat belts especially for situations belows

This is such a common trend in India where many people remove their seat belts seconds after the plane touches the ground. This is one of the most dangerous times because if the plane hits the brakes, you will get tossed. Also, where are you going? Can you not wait till the plane stops? Is the seat belt so uncomfortable?

Another trend is to remove the seat belt the moment the "Wear Seat Belts" sign is taken off. There are cases where the plane can hit air pockets and drop several meters if if you are not wearing your belts, you can get tossed up and hit your head among other things.

Another common practice is for people sitting in the back seat not to wear seats. I don't understand why? I often get asked "Does that law in your state require you to wear a seat belt at the back?". If there is an accident at 70 miles an hour, everyone is in equal danger whether you are in the front or back. The same with helmets, if you are riding at the back, wear a helmet.

Not wearing helmets or seat belts for short distances. Many people think, "Oh, I am just going to the next street...what can happen"? .....well you never know.

If you are still not convinced, take a look at this video and do it for the ones who care for you. If this does not move you and convince you to wear a seat belt then probably not will.

Video is copyright by Susses Safer Roads

If reading this article helps you change you mind and wear a seat belt or helmet, I would feel like I made a difference. Please do wear your seat belt and helmets at all times. If not for yourself, do it for the ones who love you. Wearing your seat belt or helmet is one thing you can control while getting into a vehicle.

Internet commerce has been around for over a decade and Thanksgiving sales have been around for many years. So, one would have figured that a technology company like Best Buy would be prepared to handle a little something called a pre-sale for its Silver Rewards member. Wrrrrrrrooooooooonggggggg. On Monday, November 19th, just days before Black Friday in the US, Best Buy had a special pre-sale event for its Silver Rewards members. These are loyal members of Best Buy who spend at least $2000/year. These are your high spending VIP customers who you really wanted to impress with a good experience so they would come back on Black Friday and shop some more. Unfortunately for Best Buy, this pre-sale turned out to be quite a disaster especially for customers like me who may not want to shop on their site or even deal with their phone lines.

Best Buy had been hyping this sale over the past week with a number of emails about the upcoming pre-sale. They even had a preview on Sunday. With all the preview traffic and email, they should have had an idea of the amount of traffic to expect. The sale kicked off exactly at 11 AM EST. Thanks to the preview, I knew that I wanted to get 3 DVD sets of the Big Bang Theory (yes, I am a geek). I quickly found the items and started adding them to my shopping cart. I must have added 2 items reltively quickly but by the time I got to the 3rd item, the site had slowed down to a crawl. This was all within the first 5 minutes of the pre-sale event starting. I tried to Checkout but the system hung for a while and returned back with an empty cart. Within about 10 minutes the site had crashed and I got the "We were expecting Snow but we got a Blizzard" screen. Awwww, so cute, if this were my child's website but this is Best Buy. You should not only be expecting a Blizzard, you should expect Superstorm Sandy and be prepared for that. Bestbuy.com went down faster than any of the the Kardashian sisters.

They had provided a Silver Member hotline so I decided to call that. After navigating through the phone tree, I was put in the queue only to be rudely disconnected. Seems like the Blizzard hit the phone lines too. I tried calling back but never made it. At this point, I checked Twitter and the FB page and realized that there were many irate customers like me. I tried loading the page every few minutes but kept running into the same "Blizzard" message. About an hour later, the site came back up to some extent but I had trouble adding to my cart. Eventually, I was able to add my 3 DVDs and started checking out when it hit another snag with their tax software. Fortunately, it allowed me to make the payment. It took me about 90 minutes to complete something that I should have been able to do in 5 minutes. I am still unsure the DVDs will arrive in the mail in the next two weeks.

Best Buy is one of the few businesses in the US that sells electronics and has a retail front. In the last few years, with Circuit City and Comp USA shutting down, Best Buy probably survives only because consumers do not have too many options to go to a store and purchase electronic items. They are having a hard time making profits and should do anything to avoid a black-eye or turn away loyal customers. In the age of Cloud Computing and Big Data, is it that hard for a technology company to figure out capacity? After all they have trends for the last so many years on their big sale days.

In the age of social media, they should take advantage and do any damage control, but unfortunately that did not happen either. There was no apology on the Best Buy Facebook page, there was no email from Best Buy and neither a tweet. Ironically, they were promoting Rihanna's new album aptly titled Unapologetic. The reality must be that the Marketing team that handles social media, probably reports to another part of the company and have no idea of this disaster.

They have three days to prepare for Black Friday. If they have the same issues, Black Friday may well turn in Red 2012. Now I understand why folks start camping out 4-5 days in advance, they just don't trust bestbuy.com. I still think they are morons but now perhaps give them some benefit of the doubt.

*On a somewhat funny and related note, there was a headline today that Best Buy provided Romney technology for his campaign. #Winning

The new school year has just begun in the US and with a few weeks gone by, its time for their first round of evaluations. As a parent of child from the Indian sub-continent, the question that is asked most often by other Desi parents is "How is your kid doing academically?". Its not about how your child is doing overall, its mostly about the academic aspect. I fortunately, have been blessed with a child who demonstrates intelligence at a slightly higher level than most of the students in his school and attends some extra classes called the "Challenge Program". When other parents find that out, their first question is "Will you get him tested and pushed to a higher grade?". My reaction always has been and will continue to be a BIG No!.

As someone from the Indian subcontinent, I have found that a large number of my friends and colleagues have falsified birth certificates just so that they could attend school early. I never made much of it but now I wonder Why? What is the mad rush to get your child into school early? Should education be treated as a race? Is it really about intellectual maturity or is there more we should consider before pushing our child to a higher grade? All the questions spin in my head.

If you are parent, you would have realized that a child will change tremendously over the course of 1 year, especially at younger age. A child at 4 is much more mature than at 3 and even when they hit their teens, the maturity year over year is noticable. In my opinion, a child's maturity needs to be considered in the following 3 areas.

Physical Maturity - Physical maturity among young kids changes a lot over the period of 1 year. At age 4 and 5, kids learn to write, kick and throw a ball, swing a bat. Within the period of 1 year, you will see significant improvements in their physical ability. Kids will be bigger and stronger in the space of 1 year. According to the US CDC growth chart, an average boy will grow about 2 inches taller and 4 lbs heavier between the ages of 4 and 5. Why then would you want to push your child to a higher grade with kids that are physically more mature?

Emotional Maturity - Similar to physical maturity is emotional maturity. A child will show great improvement in their emotional maturity in the space of 1 year. A child at age 4 is more attached to their parents, tends to cry more for small reasons, has a hard time separating from their parents. As they reach age 5 & 6, the emotional maturity is much higher. Another aspect of emotional maturity is their ability to think before they act. Younger kids are typically more impulsive and do not have an understanding of their actions. Why then would you want to send your child early to school, when its unlikely they can adjust emotionally?

Intellectual Maturity - Last but not the least, the child must demonstrate intellectual maturity. Your child may be a prodigy in one or more areas, perhaps its reading, mathematics or something else. One needs to evaluate if the child is performing at a level higher than just their peers or performing at a level of the next grade. Keeping in mind that there are other kids in the higher grade that also have above average intelligence, your child could fit in the average group for that class. Would you like your child to be average in a higher grade or above average in his or her grade?

If you child is perhaps above average in their class, they may end up being just average in the next grade. In the long run, this may impact the child negatively. They could have been at the front of the pack in their assigned grade but may end of being in the middle of the pack in the grade above. If your child is showing higher levels of maturity in all the areas above and you truly believe that the child needs to move to a higher grade then you should speak to your school.

I am sure many parents may disagree with my views and thats fine. I do see value in pushing the child and driving that sense of competition. I have seen him push himself harder when he does activities (swimming in his case) with bigger kids but I also see him feel a bit down about it when he is unable to compete. He does go through ups and downs but its only in his swim school. I would much rather he undergoes those emotions in a controlled environment for a limited time during the week than to go through it every day at school. The worst thing I would want to ever hear from him is "I hate going to school".

With every passing year, I see so much growth in all levels of maturity in my child that I would never consider pushing him to a higher grade. While he demonstrates a higher intellectual maturity and could perhaps do well in a higher grade, he is very much on average in his physical and emotional maturity. At the end of the day, he is just a regular 6 year old. This reminds me of something someone said to me that always rings true - Learning is a Journey, Not a Race. My journey was slowing down but now that I have a little partner with me, I am back on that journey. Sometimes its down the same old roads, sometimes its down new roads but the journey still remains gratifying. Hope this journey never ends.

The 2012 London Olympics are being watched live by millions of viewers around the world but we in America are in a unique situation where NBC is showing most of the events on tape delay. While most Americans are unhappy with this situation are are tweeting with the hashtag #NBCFail, I would like to send a few Thank you notes to the wonderful staff at NBC.

Thank you for giving me the gift of time - With news updates, tweets, Facebook posts likely to update me of scores and results, I am able to get the valuable gift of time that I would have otherwise spent on these social applications. I wait until prime time and started tweeting about how great Phelps is doing. Most of my followers have left me because they think I am stupid.

Thank you for introducing me to new sports - While the rest of the planet was watching the men's 100m finals, we in America were lucky to be watching Show Jumping.

Thank you for teaching me how to control my anger - First you show the games on tape delay, then you show an ad telling us that the winner will on be on the Today show the next day before you show the results. Great programming.

Thank you for teaching my 6-year old new words like neutering - Thanks to the incessant replay of the same commercials, my 6 year old has picked up new words such as 'neutering'. I am sure his teacher would be proud of his improved vocabulary once he returns to school from his summer break.

Thank you for freeing up my evenings in the Fall - You ran so many ads of your Fall shows during the games that I know NBC will not be on in prime time this Fall. You will continue to be in last place this Fall.

PS: The Thank You notes concept is taken from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Show, ironically on NBC